Posted
by
Unknown Lameron Monday March 26, 2012 @07:30PM
from the security-threatre-drama-troupe dept.

McGruber writes "Following up on an earlier Slashdot story, earlier today, the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure held a hearing titled 'TSA Oversight Part III: Effective Security or Security Theater?' ... In a blog update, Bruce Schneier says that 'at the request of the TSA' he was removed from the witness list. Bruce also said 'it's pretty clear that the TSA is afraid of public testimony on the topic, and especially of being challenged in front of Congress. They want to control the story, and it's easier for them to do that if I'm not sitting next to them pointing out all the holes in their position. Unfortunately, the committee went along with them.'"

We would not want to threaten the profits of all those backscatter machine companies by pointing out how little TSA's airport security really accomplishes, now would we? What, you think that because Schneier is a prominent security researcher, he is supposed to be talking about the failures of security programs?

No it's because Schneier has a conflict-of-interest since he's a hostile party in an ongoing lawsuit against the TSA. It makes sense that he would be excluded.

Maybe they should get the breast-feeding woman who was locked in a glass jail for an hour (and missed her plane) to testify before Congress. Her crime? She wanted to carry milk home to her new baby.

Or Miss America who was brought to tears by the TSA groping.

Or the lady who was forced to milk herself in a public restroom, or else have her equipment seized by the TSA as "contraband". Or the "don't touch my junk" guy. Or the 3 elderly ladies who were strip-searched. Or the young woman who overheard TSA guards commenting she had a "fine body" and asking her to step through the scanner 3 times. Or..... (Just read infowars.com or RTamerica.com; it summarizes all this stuff.)

I can hear the grinding of the gears of logic from here... hopefully you'll find the clutch before you destroy the transmission...

The TSA should be at the table. The point was that the conflict should not disqualify Schneier for participating either. If the simple fact that they are engaged in a legal battle is enough to disqualify one side, it should be enough to disqualify the other.

Or the lady who was forced to milk herself in a public restroom, or else have her equipment seized by the TSA as "contraband".

Have her breasts seized? Sure, I can understand that; probably more than 3oz of liquid in those things. If she wants to get them through security, she needs to wrap them in plastic and write "Saline Solution" on them. See Bruce Schneier: The Things He Carried [schneier.com]

Schneier took from his bag a 12-ounce container labeled "saline solution."

"It's allowed," he said. Medical supplies, such as saline solution for contact-lens cleaning, don't fall under the TSA's three-ounce rule.

They did not check. As we gathered our belongings, Schneier held up the bottle and said to the nearest security officer, "This is okay, right?" "Yep," the officer said. "Just have to put it in the tray."

"Maybe if you lit it on fire, he'd pay attention," I said, risking arrest for making a joke at airport security. (Later, Schneier would carry two bottles labeled saline solution—24 ounces in total—through security. An officer asked him why he needed two bottles. "Two eyes," he said. He was allowed to keep the bottles.)

Have her breasts seized? Sure, I can understand that; probably more than 3oz of liquid in those things. If she wants to get them through security, she needs to wrap them in plastic and write "Saline Solution" on them. See Bruce Schneier: The Things He Carried [schneier.com]

The link you posted has a very relevant and insightful paragraph where it details exactly what has made flying safer:

"Counterterrorism in the airport is a show designed to make people feel better," he said. "Only two things have made flying safer: the reinforcement of cockpit doors, and the fact that passengers know now to resist hijackers."

This is mostly spot on, but part of making people go through a heightened security screen is to remind them of the threat.

Here in the UK we had had terrorism since before I was born, we simply have less need be reminded. I expect most Israelis feel them same way since they have had a similar problem. We are used to looking out for people behaving suspiciously, we are used to keeping an eye out for unattended bags in airports or other places people congregate. There is a reason that most UK mainline train stations have no litter bins, we removed them all when the IRA decided to leave bombs in them in the 80's and 90's.

The IRA very rarely targeted air travel as they were less likely in mass killing of civilians in the later years and more interested in property damage but they still used explosives and people still died so we got used to having to keep an eye out. Now we have to keep an eye out in different places and for different things but we are still more used to being alert in the same way.

You guys in the US have never had to worry about domestic terrorism in the same way before so it is only natural you are still trying to figure out how to deal with it. It is very scary that one of your fellow citizens wants to turn on you but you have no idea exactly who. Many people though deal with this fear by blocking it out and not thinking about it, forcing people to jump through some hoops also forces them to think about it at times when it is very important.

"Counterterrorism in the airport is a show designed to make people feel better,"

I don't feel better, nor do most other people in fact. It's part of the reason the airline industry's hurting. In the large, most people don't travel any more by air unless they have to because of this tripe.

That would work... if the other party would field a competent candidate. Unfortunately, you get elections like California's recent senatorial race where a fair number of California Democrats (possibly even the majority) would have voted against Boxer, but the alternative was the woman whose leadership nearly bankrupted what by some standards is the largest computer company in the world....

Replacing one bad candidate with an even worse candidate solves nothing. The illusion of competition between the two m

Then don't vote for either of the two parties. Vote for a whacko third party -- Libertarian, Green, Communist even. Just send the message that "business as usual" doesn't cut it anymore. Even the worst third party can't screw things up any worse than the R/D's have.

If there truly were a population of evil doers who both wished harm on the US and were really willing to work toward that goal, we would have bus stop bombings, etc. in this country. There are tons of unsecured stuff that could be attacked here very easily.

The fact that such does not occur is proof that such a population is largely non-existent and certainly nowhere near being worth all the BS with the Terrorism Industrial Complex.

You are exactly correct. I was on a boating trip with several couples whom I didn't know and people started complaining about TSA. One poor woman ventured her opinion "but I think it's all ok because it keeps us safe"... I pointed out that I could kill plenty of people by wedging a bit of metal into a commuter track. She gave me a horrified look along with "Why would you even think of that?", but I think I made my point.

The problem is, they've already got a huge chunk of the country, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary, convinced that we are under constant threat of attack. (It's the lizard brain, I guess). So once they put in place checkpoints EVERYWHERE (which yes, is their plan, the fascisty fucks), it will actually be a bit harder to find the evidence you and I have both noted (once everything is surveilled, it will be hard to argue there's been no attacks because no one is trying). Also, I suspect violence would actually go up, as more people joined resistance/anti-fascist/terrorist groups in response to a crackdown. But I'm just speculating.

From Gustave Gilbert's transcripts of his conversations with Herman Goering at Nuremberg:

"Why, of course, the people don't want war," Goering shrugged. "Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship."

"There is one difference," I pointed out. "In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars."

"Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

...who also made himself available for testimoney before congress -- and was never called to testify -- after he blew the whistle on the NSA's installation of those Narus boxes at AT&T switches (throughout America, most probably and at IXPs or EPs, as well).

This isn't like jury selection. It's more like... no it actually IS expert testimony.

I was on a jury recently, and it was everything you'd hope a jury to be. Serious debate. Called for evidence during deliberation to scrutinize. Sent intelligent questions to the judge about the law. Had long, but reasonable discussions. One was a domestic assault case, and there were several people in the medical profession and a prison guard on the jury. They used their experience in their decision but it wasn't taken as testimony. Agonized, agonized, agonized until finding the defendant not guilty.

Seriously, it was the best group deliberative process I'd ever taken part in, after almost thirty years in business.

The last time I served jury duty, my job alone was enough to get me thrown off.

The case being considered was an automobile accident (with injuries), where the driver of the car was claiming that part of the steering/suspension had suddenly failed, causing his car to swerve out of control and hit the other car. There was planned to be a lot of expert testimony involving forensic engineers, metallurgists, etc. hired by the defense to back up the claim.

3 of us were thrown out by the prosecuting attorney during jury selection for having engineering or mechanical backgrounds. One machinist, one auto mechanic, and myself (electronics design). Apparently, if you know enough to possibly UNDERSTAND what the hired experts are trying to say, you have no place on the jury....

I think the idea is that they dont want you making assumptions about the evidence or facts of the case based on your evidence. For instance, your experience might tell you that it is very rare for such an automobile to have a suspension failure. But your expertise in that area hasnt been vetted by the court, and you might attempt to influence the other jurors with your informed guess in a way that would subvert the process.

Throughout the entire history of this country, taking from examples even before that, it has been firmly held that the jury is both the trier of fact as well as law, and that a jury is seen as a final check against governmental abuse.

You're also wrong in that judges certainly have the ability to ask questions themselves of defendants and witnesses and it used to be the case that jurors could as well. Jurors were allowed to and encouraged to take notes, but not

John Jay, the 1st Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court, stated that jurors possess “a right to determine the law as well as the fact in controversy.”

You don't think that the founders, who had just been criminally prosecuted by the British and protected by juries, expected the right to a jury trial to protect people from unjust laws?

During the American Revolution, juries regularly acquitted colonists convicted under British laws and before the Civil War, juries acquitted abolitionists and slaves accused of violating the Fugitive Slave Act.

If you are on a jury, you hold in your hands the responsibility to determine if the person in front of you should be punished by the State. Don't think you can evade that responsibility by saying you will leave it to the government to decide if the law is just or not.

"Not Guilty" exists because people did exactly what you're saying no juror should do. Prior to that, the choices were "proven" or "not proven" - with no possibility at all for "what provably happened does not deserve punishment".

It's a corruption of the entire history of trial by jury to suggest jurors shouldn't consider the justness of the law along with the facts of the case they're trying, and also is a grievous insult to the personal capacity of jurors.

That seems a little over-the-top. Sure it strips your clothes off your body, to display a naked gray image of your breasts and penis. Sure the guards have been caught asking particular gorgeous women to step through the machine multiple times. Sure some TSA agents have posted personal notes like "Get your freak on" in lady's luggage. Sure some of those images have been leaked by those same guards to the internet......

Since it is popular to post "Thanks to TSA, I now drive instead of flying", I will point out that the House and Senate are currently in a showdown that likely will result in a cutoff of federal highway funding.

If you've got a solution for travel for the 5,000 or so residents of this little town (or the more or less equivalent number of people in the surrounding communities -- and no, this is not unusual up here in Alaska), I'd love to hear about it. "Not driving" isn't a much better option for me either [google.com], although it is at least possible...it would just take my entire two weeks of leave getting anywhere I might want to go and back, with no time to actually do anything once I arrive. That makes at least a half million of us for whom "Just drive instead!" isn't a viable option.

Then how about they give all that gas money they are collecting to the states. Oh wait, that's what the bills for, to hand over to the states the money collected in the federal gas tax.

Though there is the slight problem that because they haven't raised the gas tax in 20 years that there isn't enough revenue in the highway trust fund (gas tax revenue) anymore to pay what's needed to keep the freeway system from falling apart but what do we care, with the baby boomers running things we don't have to care about infrastructure anymore! What's ironic is they could double the federal gas tax ($0.17) and no one would even notice at the pump and all that additional money flowing into construction would get the economy going again in pretty quick order.

It's been almost 4 years since the last highway funding bill expired (they've been doing 6 month extensions which doesn't give the states enough certainty in funding to do anything other than small maintenance jobs and now it's going to expire completely putting the rest of the construction workers and engineers who weren't on welfare and food stamps onto them. Every dollar spent on highways and roads puts $4 back into the economy. It's the single biggest economic stimulant the government has and it's been completely ignored for the last 4 years while we gave 700 billion to the banking industry to bail out their malfeasance.

When is the time right for us to arm ourselves and kick every one of these fucking criminals out of the elected offices they hold? I think the OWS thing should have been done in D.C. and they should have marched right into the capitol building and the white house. There's no way they could contain that size of group short of opening fire with live rounds.

Maybe when we see piles of dead US citizens that were once our brothers and sisters would we then WAKE THE FUCK UP. This country needs another revolution worse than Madonna needs to retire.

Who will lead us into the new revolution? Who would have real good ideas for fixing our broken democracy? I elect Neil deGrasse Tyson [wikipedia.org], and maybe Ron Paul could help as well.

Unfortunately, as a country after 911 we said we don't care about our rights, just protect us from the terrorists. It's our own fault. Once you lose your liberty, it's hard to get it back. We might as well dismantle the Statue of Liberty, she doesn't stand for anything anymore.

Same congress that prevented any women from testifying on women's health issues recently.

I believe you mean "one woman from testifying on religious freedom issues". The issue before congress was whether the mandate was a potential violation of the rights of religious institutions. It was not an evil panel of old men trying to put a baby in every woman's uterus.

Are you suggesting that matters of religious freedoms should only allow input from religious people at the exclusion of all others? You don't have to agree with her but something is wrong when you argue for a 'nah nah I'm not listening' debate.

The issue before congress was whether the mandate was a potential violation of the rights of religious institutions.

The mandate in this case being about women's health issues. How does this translate into excluding women completely from the discussion? No matter where you stand on this: obviously women should have been given the chance to argue why their rights do not infringe on religious freedom of other people.

Oh, make no mistake about it, it is a violation of the rights of religious institutions. I don't think that was ever in much question. The question is just how far do those rights extend? My religious rights, for example, do not give me the right to dictate your health care options. Why should it be any different for an employer dictating that an employee cannot have have contraceptive coverage for no incremental expense past what the coverage already costs?

That is why Sandra Fluke should have been allowed to testify in a panel regarding religious freedom. They had a panel made of people whose agenda is pushing that freedom as far as possible, even at the expense of the individual liberty of people like Sandra Fluke. Without her testimony, there was no one to say, "That's too far," and the panel--and the public--did not get a fair representation of the issue at hand.

Also, if you actually watch the panel, you will quickly see that it wasn't just about religious freedom. Every person who testified did so extensively about the issue of contraception. To pretend like contraception just happened to be an issue that came up is extremely dishonest and disingenuous. I for one do not believe that simply draping some issue in the mantle of religious freedom and not allowing any opposing viewpoints because, hey, it's not relevant to religious freedom, is not an acceptable way to debate.

Here we see that saying "I support the liberal side of this recent political issue" is +5 insightful, while saying "I support the conservative side of this recent political issue" is -1 Troll. Slashdot: some things never change.

Are you joking? Slashdot is largely libertarian, not "liberal" (in the 20th / 21st century sense of liberal, not in the classical sense). However, Slashdot is not socially conservative, but then neither or most "live and let live" libertarians.

Yeah. It's always seemed to me that because Slashdot generally consists of an intelligent, well-educated readership (bullshit posts and nonsense traditions aside), they have inherited some liberal social views, but the engineering contingent here is too strong to allow anything but a very pragmatic sort of outlook, because of which Slashdot tends to leans toward more conservative attitudes about the nature of ideas and justification. The libertarian streak within/.ers I think is mostly rooted in a kind of skepticism toward policy.

But yeah. Slashdot definitely has an archetypal political outlook, but it's not one quite so simple as ‘liberal’ or ‘conservative’.

Actually, that's not technically correct. The hearing was on the constitutionality of regulations that may impact the First Amendment right of the free exercise of religion. Fluke was substituted the day before the hearing, and was excluded from it due to her lack of actual established expertise on First Amendment issues, and insufficient time to verify exactly what expertise a law school student would bring, the remaining witnesses all being established Constitutional Scholars. Instead, she testified to

Congress has been violating the "charter" AKA The Constitution for years. If you are just noticing this then you need to wake up, get a cup of coffee, read the constitution and find out what has really been going on.

However, there is no guarantee that you or anyone will get to testify before congress. There is a guarantee that you will be secure in your persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.

4th amendment"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

Can some one point to the airport exclusion? Or where congress amended the constitution to allow this?

The purpose of this hearing is not to allow congress to learn hidden facts. It is to convince the public that congress is doing its job, and that its decision to continue funding the TSA and to continue allowing the TSA to perform warrantless invasive searches is the result of a well-scrutinized and carefully considered process.

4th amendment
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
Can some one point to the airport exclusion? Or where congress amended the constitution to allow this?

They simply changed the interpretation of "unreasonable". After all you may be a terrorist, citizen.

I agree with you.. but it isn't like we (American citizens) haven't been complicit. We have one party that is willing to say publicly that water boarding isn't torture. And on the other side, one that says Guantanamo Bay is wrong and should be closed, yet is unwilling to actually close it. And we have American citizens that either don't care, won't say anything, or at the very least won't vote these people out of office. There are no protests - not over Guantanamo, not over the TSA, not over much of anything.

When something goes wrong (say 9/11), people scream for more security... and they willingly give up their rights. And to get them back? Congress might hold slow, reasoned debates, without so much as a peep from the public.

They are holding hearings on the TSA now... I watched MTP, ThisWeek, and Fox News Sunday yesterday, and there wasn't so much as a mention of it.

And if you think it's just the media... then where are the protests of people concerned about their rights? Where were they the last 10 years?

The border exclusion has been a long-standing tradition: the understanding is that in order to control your borders, you need to be able to stop and search people indiscriminately, and without a search warrant. Or at least, the search warrant is implied in the fact that someone wants to cross the border.

Which means we shouldn't be searched for airflights (or trains or cars) that travel internal to the U.S. and cross no borders. And yet they do it all the time.

I was caught in several of these while following I-8 from California to Texas. Most just waved me past, but one stop demanded to search my trunk. I refused. ("No warrant; no search." - ACLU of DC.) As punishment they made me stand in the hot sun for an hour & get a nasty burn. Bastards. The SA and Homeland cops think they can look anyplace they want.

Or at least, the search warrant is implied in the fact that someone wants to cross the border.

Well, except that it applies to domestic flights.

And while we might want to catch people sneaking into or out of the country with contraband we can safely restrict it to people we actually suspect... searching every man woman child, baby, citizen, foreigner, exchange student, disabled person, and war veteran... "just in case" is beyond ridiculous.

The meaning of the word "unreasonable" has become vague, at least in common use. From the oldest dictionary I could find (Oxford English Dictionary, first edition http://archive.org/stream/oedxaarch#page/n889/mode/2up [archive.org]), it is:
1: Not endowed with reason; irrational
2: Not acting in accordance with reason or good sense

IOW, Unreasonable means "without a reason." The government can not conduct a search without having a reason to do the search. This makes perfect sense: If an TV was stolen nearby and soon after an eyewitness says they saw you carrying a TV into your house, then the police have a reason to search your house: To see if the stolen TV is inside. On the other hand, if the TSA picks a person at random, then they don't have any reason to search him for bombs.

Oh, unless you're living in a dark cave we should all know now that the constitution is just an old, annoying piece of paper and congress is a pack of loony toons waiting for retirement while raiding any and all funds it can to get pork projects going, and vote selling. The gov. has completely ignored popular will for some time.

Well, let's see: when you breathe, you thereby temporarily reduce the volume of atmospheric air in circulation. Given that air circulates freely across state borders, and cannot be meaningfully segregated into volumes belonging to some specific state, clearly, breathing is an act that has immediate consequences across the state border. For example, were somebody to sell bottled air in the neighboring state, you have just deprived them of some of their source material, raising the costs. Clearly, then, this

No, but it *does* grant the right to travel. I live in Alaska. Granted, I live in Anchorage which is connected to the lower-48 by highways. However, my job provides services to a village called Bethel (and a couple dozen surrounding villages) which are only accessible by air (or dog team, *if* it's winter and you've got two weeks to get where you're going). Therefore, in effect, by denying access to the airlines without a search, you have essentially denied the right of travel without forfeiting your right to be free from searches to at least a quarter of the residents of the state.

I don't know if you're trolling, intentionally disingenuous or just misinformed, so I'll assume the latter. Nevertheless, it might be a good idea to actually visit here before trying to tell my why I'm wrong about the place I've lived for over twenty years.

That is absurd. It wasn't the US government that decided that people should build a village in an area so remote that it was impractical to build a road that would be passable in the winter. The people who live there decided that they wanted to live in a place that's inaccessible. You can't blame the government for that. (Well, you can blame them, but you can't expect such absurd blaming to go without response.)

Ummm...you do realize that most of the peoples on the west coast of Alaska have lived there for longer than there even has been a United States government, don't you?

Also, are you asserting that the small private planes that go in and out of remote villages in Alaska are subject to the same screenings as airliners going in and out of major airports? I have no personal experience with that IN ALASKA, but I have been in and out of small private airfields in other states and there was no security theatre whatsoever.

The degree of security depends upon the airport and the type of operation being conducted. If you are flying with a Part 135 (air taxi) operator out of smaller airports, no, there is not much security. However, even the Part 141 (scheduled air carriers, i.e., airlines) fly into some surprisingly small airports. For example, Iliamna is off the road system, and IIRC, it does have airport security. Again, as I stated with the Bethel example, there is essentially no way in or out of Iliamna except by airplane. Furthermore, maybe you haven't been keeping tabs, but TSA has tried twice (so far) to expand the scope of airport security to include smaller operators and smaller airplanes. So far, there has been enough public outcry to prevent this, but then again, I never expected that we would see the crap we currently see at the airports.

The only precautions were to ensure that the person taking the plane out was the plane's owner. You didn't have to show a pilot's license and nobody cared who might be along for a ride.

If you are talking about non-commercial services, then yes, you are correct. In some cases, there is even less security than you mention. I own an airplane based at Merrill Field here in Anchorage, and the only thing you need to get in my airplane and fly away is the key to remove the prop lock (and a good deal of luck -- the Rotax 503 powering it is a cranky, temperamental POS). However, the myth that everyone in Alaska owns an airplane and/or has access to a private airplane is exactly that -- a myth. One in ten people here are pilots, but a good number of them don't own airplanes. A good number of those that do, don't own airplanes that are currently airworthy; it's expensive to own an airplane (mine isn't, for example).

Furthermore, if you think a private plane is an acceptable substitute for an airliner, then you have absolutely no idea of the scale of Alaska nor the difficulty of crossing the state in a small airplane. Summers up here are often rainy with low overcast skies. Couple that with the majority of the state covered with some really freaking huge mountain ranges (you do know that nine of the sixteen highest peaks in North America are in Alaska, don't you?), and it's not a trivial matter to cross the state in a small airplane. Filing IFR often isn't a possibility because of icing, even in the summer. In the winter, things are even more difficult due to limited daylight hours and extreme temperatures (most Cessnas aren't designed to fly at -20F or less, even though it *can* be done).

So if Alaska is anything like the other states I've lived in, it's perfectly possible for people living in outlying villages to hitch a ride to town and from there

I suppose I could have been a little more clear. Yes, I have a Rotax powered airplane, and yes, I have flown it around Alaska. The Rotax is a cranky, temperamental POS, but only when I'm trying to start it. Once running, mine, at least, has never missed a beat. The second caveat is that my airplane has a pretty good glide ratio -- much, much better than the Cessnas that I learned to fly in. Finally, the farthest I have flown *my* airplane is to Talkeetna, about 65 N.M. north of Anchorage. That's about a 1.5 - 2 hour trip in a Cessna, but I logged over three hours in my airplane on that trip.

As for the unforgiving environment...it is unforgiving, but I don't want to exaggerate the danger. There are some places where, if you crash, you are going to be in a world of hurt. The Alaska Range and the Brooks Range are great examples, and you have to cross the Alaska Range to get to the villages on the west coast I mentioned earlier. Merrill Pass, one of the gateways from southcentral Alaska where I live to the west coast is literally peppered with airplane wreckage. I flew that pass once, but on a day when the ceilings were 11,000 feet. Most pilots who get into trouble there do so on days when the weather is iffy. The problem is, you have to make a blind corner to enter the pass, which is really narrow. If the weather's good where you are at, but bad in the pass, you've got nowhere to go but into the clouds, and that's bad news in a narrow, almost vertical-walled canyon.

In other words, the flying is great here when the weather is good, but the weather can change quickly in some areas, and mountain flying introduces even more risk to the equation. Consequently, private airplanes are a common way to travel in the state, but it is unreliable, and a lot of routes simply aren't feasible without airlines due to the overall distance or the distance between possible fuel stops along your route.

Just remember that the constitution does not grant you the right to fly either.

Actually the American founders though of that problem, and solved it via the Ninth AmendmentThe enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

This passage is really genius and its a great pity that the kind of intellectual governance that drafted it no longer exists in the US today.

Just remember that the constitution does not grant you the right to fly either.

Actually the American founders though of that problem, and solved it via the Ninth Amendment
The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
This passage is really genius and its a great pity that the kind of intellectual governance that drafted it no longer exists in the US today.

That passage was James Madison's forlorn hope. He argued strongly that a Bill of Rights was a bad idea, because it could never enumerate everything that mattered and anything that was left out would have second-class status at best, or even be called a non-right because obviously if it were a right it would have been included. Only when it became clear that the absence of a Bill of Rights was threatening the Constitution, because the anti-Federalists were arguing that a "strong" federal government (remember that "strong" in those days meant something that was still only the barest shadow of today's juggernaut) would trample the rights of the people, did Madison relent and begin working on what we now know as the Bill of Rights.

The 9th and 10th were his attempt to stave off the disaster he'd predicted. History has shown that he was not wrong in his prediction of government running roughshod over non-enumerated rights. However, there's also not much proof that he was right in his prediction that not enumerating any rights would have worked better. He and the other Federalists really placed their trust in the states and the ability of the people to keep their own state governments from trampling their rights, but that hope proved just as vain, which is why the 14th amendment was eventually required.

The constitution grants rights to the goverment. The american system is built on a foundation of "deny all with specific exceptions" for the government and "permit all with specific exceptions" for the people.

Again we find somebody on slashdot egregiously misrepresenting the meaning of the Amendments. What that Amendment means is that the Constitution does not contain a comprehensive list of your rights. You may have other rights not listed here. Film at 11.

Which, coincidentally, is covered by the 10th Amendment:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

So the question here is does Article 1 section 8 of the constitution trump the protections of the bill of rights?

by your reading, which I find way too broad, then the government could regulate the ownership of guns, bullets, wheat, bread, etc based on the concept that it may cross state lines and thus be "interstate commerce"

"To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

To me that says that congress can regulate state to state commerce, not private commerce between two people or businesses in different states.

Besides, how is my buying a plane ticket at the local airport, paying at the local airport, paying state and federal taxes on the tickets at the local airport and getting on a plain for another state "commerce among the several States"?

If anybody honestly expected the U.S. government to bring in experts on any issue even slightly tied to the giant boondoggle that is the TSA, you must have been hiding under a rock for the past ten years.

In fact, I'll go one step further and say that the day Congress actually lets competent, intelligent technology experts into any discussion, we'll have solved global warming semipermanently by balancing the heat from the sun with the icy breeze coming up from hell.

That being said, I think the only thing the TSA should be searching for is bombs and guns. Everything else (sharps / baby formula / pictures of guns) should be allowed through. There's nothing a hijacker can do with a sharp any more.

specifically, ask them who they'll be inviting instead to provide counterpoint, if not Mr. Schneier.Ask them how they can assume the TSA, which must provide a biased story to (1) avoid contradicting previous statements, (2) to protect their future budget and (3) to successfully defend the lawsuit for which Mr. Schneier was removed, can be considered an unbiased source of information. (Oh wait, they're federal employees, altruism must be taken for granted)

As a citizen in a country recently forced to get the giant useless shiny boxes of security theater demanded by the USA on all incoming flights. (Australia)And as someone who hopes to one day visit the USA without surrendering my life at the border and having my every movement watched like a dog you cant trust not to shit on the rug, watched just incase i "look funny" for a moment... just because i might (not planning on it, just referring to their statistical modeling that says 1 in every X thousand is %50

And after TSA took over, security at the airports was ineffective enough to let the shoe bomber and the underwear bomber through. Passengers stopped both. Bad government advice to air passengers allowed 9/11 to happen until on the last plane, passengers decided to ignore it and avert further disaster.

So it seems that the big difference is that airport supplied security was cheaper, less degrading and offensive and didn't molest children.

The security provided now isn't any better. The only real improvements in security have been the cockpit doors and the passengers who won't allow a hijacking anymore, neither of which is because of the TSA.

1) Pre-911, a hijacking meant you sit down and stay quiet. The hijackers take over, fly the plane to Cuba (or some other location), make a big statement about some political cause and (after some political negotiations), everyone is set free. Inconvenient? Sure, but in general not life threatening if you sit down and be quiet. However, now if someone hijacks an airplane, everyone will assume they intend to kill everyone on-board. Thus, there is nothing to lose trying to violently overthrow the hijackers. Worst case scenario: Everyone still dies, but might derail the terrorists' plans. Best case scenario: The terrorists are foiled and some/all passengers survive.

2) The cockpit doors are sealed and reinforced so a terrorist can't get to the cockpit. So even if a terrorist takes over the passenger section *AND* if the passengers don't fight back, the pilots can land the plane to minimize the damage the terrorists can do.

Even without a single post-911 TSA "advancement", no terrorist will be able to replicate 9-11. (This isn't to say they can't kill more people, just that they can't repeat their previous performance.)

9/11 didn't happen because TSA wasn't on duty yet. 9/11 happened because up until that point, the game went like this:"Terrorist" hijacks an airplaneEveryone sits tight and does what they are told.Airplane goes to Cuba (or wherever).Everyone goes home a little shaken up, but unharmed after a nice vacation on a tropical island that very few Americans get to see any more.

That changed on 9/11, and we had already adjusted to the new playing field before the day was done. [wikipedia.org] The new paradigm, and securing the cabin doors, were all that was necessary to ensure that there will NEVER be another 9/11. IMHO, if you really want to prevent another hijacking on an airliner, you'll scrap the TSA and just issue every passenger a Louisville Slugger when they board the airplane. The passengers have the greatest vested interest in the security; stop trying to disarm your greatest allies in the quest for secure airliners!

And even the argument I pose above begs the ultimate question in the so-called "War on Terror:" WTF were the 9/11 hijackers doing in the country in the first place?!?! If you *start* your security procedure in the airport, you've already screwed the pooch. IIRC, we had reason to believe at least some of the hijackers were bad actors long before they boarded the airplanes in 2001. They never should have been allowed to get to the airport to begin with.

Sigh...THIS IS NOT A LEFT VS. RIGHT THING! THIS IS A GOVERNMENT VS. THE PEOPLE THING!

As long as the populace wants to blame a Republican or a Democrat, we won't see any change. Both Democrats AND Republicans are to blame for the mockery the U.S. has become since 9/11. They are two sides of the same coin. No matter which side is face up when the coin hits the table, you and I lose. It's time to vote EVERYBODY out of office and start over!

The president cannot dissolve any agency created by the Laws passed by Congress. He cannot dissolve the FAA or HUD or DHS. It's his job to execute those laws. He COULD tell Janet Napolitano to stop acting like Big Brother though, since he is her boss.

I've already [blogspot.com] petitioned my [blogspot.com] congresscritters [blogspot.com] and the Whitehouse [blogspot.com] as well as filing a complaint with TSA itself (no link for that). In addition, I have decided to boycott air travel [blogspot.com] until this nonsense stops, and I've started the blog that all these links point to so I can share information about what is going on at the airports. I'm not yet ready to take up arms and start an insurrection, but if you've got some constructive ideas that fall between what I've done so far (petitions, blogging, voting and hitti